How is that any different from using the GPL and programming for Redhat without pay?
I don't like Microsoft. I don't like Windows. But if OpenBSD being under the BSD license keeps some Windows users from being cracked, then that alone is worth all of the FUD and SHIT from the "freedom==restriction" GNUzis.
A proprietary Microsoft variant of GNU/Linux would interfere with their customers' ability to interoperate with us...
Interoperability has nothing to do with software licensing. Microsoft could make a variant of LiGnuX, release it under the GPL, and still have it be incompatible with other linuces and unices. Or to put it another way, MS Word is not incompatible with Abiword because it is released under a EULA, but because it uses a different file format. It may be easier to reverse engineer the format if the source code were available, but the format differences would still be there. And I'll bet you last year's AbiSource profits that AbiSource would still be tracking every release of a GPLd MSWord to see what new incompatibilities were unleashed upon the world.
...their only alternative to being at Microsoft's mercy would be the painful and expensive process of completely abandoning the system.
How is the process of completely abandoning a Windows system any less painful and expensive then abandoning a Linux, GNU or BSD system?
Information doesn't suffer from inherent scarcity the way material goods do, so the common good pretty much consists of freedom to fully use it.
But the GPL is not about the freedom to fully use the software. There is no scarcity of information, remember? If Microsoft comes along and "steals" Linux, guess what? Your copy of Linux is still there! Untouched! There is nothing Microsoft can do to an illegal copy of Linux that could impact you or your community in any way (other than insult your fragile sensibilities). Apple "stole" FreeBSD and created Mac OS X out of it. Guess what? FreeBSD is still there! Unchanged! No one using FreeBSD at the time had their "freedom" diminished in any way.
Copyleft is irrelevant if information is not scarce. If my downloading of MP3s does not harm the musician, then why should my distribution of a GPL binary without source harm the developer?
If the situation were the inconvenience of one man versus the lives of his entire community, then I will most certainly side with the community. But if comes down to the life of one man versus the inconvenience of the community, well then, screw the community!
But the situation in the Free Software Movement(tm) is at neither of these extremes. It comes down to the minor inconvenience of the community getting their noses out of joint, and the major inconvenience of the individual developer having to reinvent the wheel.
But the code belongs to the author, and it is up to the author to decide how it will be distributed. If he decides that the "common good" of his particular community is paramount, then the GPL may be his best choice. But it has nothing to do with freedom. Freedom is for everyone, even for those you don't like.
2) Select two groups of people with that attribute.
3) Miraculously produce statistics correlating first group with second group.
People who download music are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't download music. People who buy CDs are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't buy CDs. Making the assertion that people who download music or more likely to buy CDs is asinine. Don't insult my intelligence. Even my PHP could have figured that one out!
People who buy dog food are more likely to take their dogs on walks in the park than people who don't buy dog food. BFD!
Or the fact that the FSF actively solicits developers to release their code under the GPL. Days after I first publicly announced a software package of mine, I was approached by number two at the FSF, urging me to change my license from the BSD to the GPL. I wonder what they do, monitor freshmeat or something? Do these guys get a commission for every convert?
In fact, the only people who have ever written to me expressing their disapproval over the licensing of my software have all had "gnu.org" as part of the email address. Now why is that?
It doesn't attempt to infect code it touches. It's goal is to form a club of Free Software users and Developers.
Precisely! GPLd software is not written for everyone, only a certain select few. They'll let you use it, but if you want to touch, you'll find that their definition of "freedom" only applies to club members.
The FSF and many GPL supporters are communitarians. They believe that the community is more important than the individual. They don't want individuals to own software, they want the community (or the FSF) to own the software, which is why it's still copyrighted and owned. They don't like the BSD and MIT licenses because users from outside the community are not required to play by community rules.
Just as the politicians in the material word holds the wants of the community in higher regard than the freedom of the individual, the Free Software Movement(tm) holds the the community's want to control the software distribution in higher regard than the freedom of the individual developer.
RMS has long looked for a less misunderstood term than "Free Software". How about "Community Software". It fits their meaning and it's easy to understand. And as a benefit, it de-emphasizes "freedom", which in the FSF rhetoric, has always played second fiddle to the "common good".
Duh! If I were I socialist/communist/communitarian, I would believe that all property should be owned in common, and the GPL would have to be a moral imperative. If I were a liberal/conservative, I would believe I had to protect the common person from making a wrong decision, and the GPL would again become a moral imperative.
But since I am a libertarion (anarcho-capitalist, actually) then it doesn't bother me one bit if someone uses software whose license I would not have chosen. They are their own sovereigns, and it is not up to me to tell them what software they can or cannot use. It doesn't bother me if they choose Mandrake over Debian, or that Steve Jobs chose FreeBSD over Linux, or that Ransom Love doesn't like the GPL. And it doesn't bother me if a developer considers their software to be their property. If they license it in a way that I don't like, then I don't use it. My personal freedom is not affected by someone else's licensing. If the terms are too onerous, then it is I that chooses not use it. And should I choose to use it, then I can just as freely choose not to use it at a later date.
Define it however you want, the fact is that your idea of a free society is unworkable, where his idea is much more attainable.
It may not be workable in societies where all children are sent to government indoctrination centers until age 18, and where the state actively bribes voters with promises of cash, and where public office is considered a prize and not a responsibility.
But it can, and *does*, work in cyberspace. There is nothing anyone, anywhere can do to BSD or MIT licensed code that can alter your or my freedom with regards to it. Nothing. It is metaphysically impossible. Apple can take FreeBSD and mix it all up with proprietary code, but guess what? FreeBSD is still there. Unchanged. If you don't want to use OS X because it is proprietary, then it is your choice, and your free will, not to. Don't like it don't use it.
If your application depends on some library to provide some of its functionality, then it is a derivation!
In the programmatic sense, you are correct. But we're talking about copyright here. I can't find any place in copyright law that dependency creates derivation. Can you show me were in law it says this?
I think it is your concept of freedom that is empty. Freedom is the absence of restriction. Period. The reason individuals cannot own slaves in a free society is because slavery is restriction. I don't need any laws defining your freedom to swing your fist to end at my nose, because once your fist connects, you are restricting me.
Don't try to delineate specific freedoms, and who gets what rights, and who enforces them, and which restrictions are too restrictive and which ones are not restrictive enough. That's legalistic mumbo-jumbo that merely employs lawyers. Instead, just make one simple guideline: don't restrict.
It is easy for you to think that your work is "entirely original," but if it won't work without someone else's GPLed code, then clearly it is derivative.
Not at all! There is no derivation, only reference. And copyright law is completely silent on the topic of reference. There are no analogies that fit this situation, since there are no similar toolkits for music or prose, so I won't attempt to create any.
And besides, it's completely contradictory to the most of the GPL itself. "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." By dynamically linking to a GPL library, I am neither copying, distributing or modifying the library. The user might have to copy the library into RAM, that isn't me.
By dynamically linking my original application with a hypothetical GPLd library, libfoo, I am not distributing libfoo. Neither do I distribute any of libfoo when I distribute my application. My application is 100% original and in no way a derivative of libfoo.
At some point in time, my application will be loaded into the same process address space as libfoo, and this is the only time it gets copied. But it occurs at runtime in the privacy of the end user's computer, and does not involve the distribution of libfoo.
If the developer has an original work, (s)he can choose whatever license (s)he pleases.
My application that depends on libfoo is entirely original. Dependency is not derivation. Aggregation in RAM is not derivation. Yet RMS will not let me choose what license I please. The use of the GPL for shared libraries is wrong. It certainly ain't free. What it is is propaganda and bullshit.
If you don't find the underlying hypocrisy in this, you don't really understand the issue. It would be like some political faction arguing that land ownership is wrong, then encouraging everyone to put deed restrictions on their homes.
Ownership of property means control of the property. If no one owns it, no one controls it. But for the FSF to argue that the GPL is needed so that the authors can control the distribution of their software is to acknowledge that software should be owned. You can't have it both ways.
RMS doesn't want individuals or corporations to own software. But he certainly intends for software to be owned. He wants it owned by the "community" in common for the "public good". Sort of like the classic village commons. Except that the real village commons in history were invariably owned by an enlightened nobility who only meant the best for their enslaved serfs.
Actually, Stallman's mantra puts the end-users rights ahead of everything.
Bullshit! This is just more of FSF propaganda, and not very good propaganda at that. Developers are users too. The primary, if not sole, user of a software library is a developer. But when you place a library under the GPL, as opposed to the LGPL or other license, you are specifically restricting the developer in the worst possible way. You end up dictating to the end user how they may license and distribute their own original works of creativity.
RMS doesn't care about the end user. He only cares that his feelings won't get hurt by people using his software in ways that he doesn't want them to.
The typical non-hacker or un-geek sees freedom as being a lack of restriction. But RMS and the FSF does not see freedom that way. To them, freedom *requires* restriction, which is the whole point of the GPL. Strike one against him in the eyes of most people. In fact, the "free" in "free software" is meaningless without RMS's definition.
They also see that RMS says that "software should not be owned" while at the same time encouraging everyone to GPL (copyright) their software. This smacks of outright hypocrisy to the average person.
"Most people" don't know what copyleft is. But most sofware developers do. It is nearly impossible to be a developer for any period of time without knowing what it is. Yet the vast majority of developers do not espouse copyleft. The most successful free software project (Apache) is not copyleft. The second most successful (X11R6) is not copyleft. The third most successful (Perl) is not copyleft through it's dual licensing.
"Most people" would view the premise of copyleft as nonsensical. "Freedom, but not too much" is pretty silly.
Check the slackware-current changelog. It's BETA time!
Re:bah -- qt the "de facto" standard?
on
Qt for Mac
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· Score: 3
No, you don't have to pay royalties. Period. Just pay the professional edition. Once. No royalties, no additional payments, no nothing. It's actually freer in some ways than the GPL/QPL version, because you have zero restrictions upon your own code.
I am continually amazed at the degree of ignorance and FUD that gets posted here about Apple. Apple is not perfect by any means (their legal team should be fired), but they have made a lot of progress in the past few years and come out with some really interesting stuff. When other companies do that sort of stuff, everyone cheers. When Apple does it, it's nothing but bitching and moaning. Why?
Well, because Tacoboy and his minions hate anything that is not Linux, GNU or the GPL. IBM is okay because they use Linux. HP is okay because they use Linux. SGI is okay because they use Linux.
So what does Apple do? It bases its new OS on FreeBSD instead of LinuxOS, and uses the APSL instead of the GPL. To the kill-it-if-it-ain't-linux crowd, this was a mortal insult that can never be forgiven.
You are not free if you do not have the choice to be free or unfree. And if you have the ability to choose unfreeness, then you are free. Even if there is no turning back on unfreeness, at least you were free at the time you made that choice.
This is in stark contrast to proprietary software. You are born free and then subsequently choose to use proprietary software. If you don't like it, stop using it. It's like walking into a closet and shutting the door behind you. Your movement is now restricted because you are in a closet, but you are still free and the closet is not subjugating. Just step out! People *choose* to use Linux or BSD instead of Windows. How can they possibly be unfree if they have that choice?
It's great to know that no one in the GPL community has ever bashed the BSD license. That's so righteous of you guys. We should follow your example.
However, the xMach guys are not bashing the GPL. They are merely not desiring to use it. Can't you see the difference? Are you offended that "freedom" means that people don't have to make the same choices as you?
Slashdot Mirror
How is that any different from using the GPL and programming for Redhat without pay?
I don't like Microsoft. I don't like Windows. But if OpenBSD being under the BSD license keeps some Windows users from being cracked, then that alone is worth all of the FUD and SHIT from the "freedom==restriction" GNUzis.
A proprietary Microsoft variant of GNU/Linux would interfere with their customers' ability to interoperate with us...
...their only alternative to being at Microsoft's mercy would be the painful and expensive process of completely abandoning the system.
Interoperability has nothing to do with software licensing. Microsoft could make a variant of LiGnuX, release it under the GPL, and still have it be incompatible with other linuces and unices. Or to put it another way, MS Word is not incompatible with Abiword because it is released under a EULA, but because it uses a different file format. It may be easier to reverse engineer the format if the source code were available, but the format differences would still be there. And I'll bet you last year's AbiSource profits that AbiSource would still be tracking every release of a GPLd MSWord to see what new incompatibilities were unleashed upon the world.
How is the process of completely abandoning a Windows system any less painful and expensive then abandoning a Linux, GNU or BSD system?
Aaargh! Okay, think quick...
PHP stands for Pointy Headed Pinhead! Yeah, that's it! Pointy Headed Pinhead!
Information doesn't suffer from inherent scarcity the way material goods do, so the common good pretty much consists of freedom to fully use it.
But the GPL is not about the freedom to fully use the software. There is no scarcity of information, remember? If Microsoft comes along and "steals" Linux, guess what? Your copy of Linux is still there! Untouched! There is nothing Microsoft can do to an illegal copy of Linux that could impact you or your community in any way (other than insult your fragile sensibilities). Apple "stole" FreeBSD and created Mac OS X out of it. Guess what? FreeBSD is still there! Unchanged! No one using FreeBSD at the time had their "freedom" diminished in any way.
Copyleft is irrelevant if information is not scarce. If my downloading of MP3s does not harm the musician, then why should my distribution of a GPL binary without source harm the developer?
If the situation were the inconvenience of one man versus the lives of his entire community, then I will most certainly side with the community. But if comes down to the life of one man versus the inconvenience of the community, well then, screw the community!
But the situation in the Free Software Movement(tm) is at neither of these extremes. It comes down to the minor inconvenience of the community getting their noses out of joint, and the major inconvenience of the individual developer having to reinvent the wheel.
But the code belongs to the author, and it is up to the author to decide how it will be distributed. If he decides that the "common good" of his particular community is paramount, then the GPL may be his best choice. But it has nothing to do with freedom. Freedom is for everyone, even for those you don't like.
How to lie with statistics.
1) Choose a specific attribute.
2) Select two groups of people with that attribute.
3) Miraculously produce statistics correlating first group with second group.
People who download music are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't download music. People who buy CDs are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't buy CDs. Making the assertion that people who download music or more likely to buy CDs is asinine. Don't insult my intelligence. Even my PHP could have figured that one out!
People who buy dog food are more likely to take their dogs on walks in the park than people who don't buy dog food. BFD!
Or the fact that the FSF actively solicits developers to release their code under the GPL. Days after I first publicly announced a software package of mine, I was approached by number two at the FSF, urging me to change my license from the BSD to the GPL. I wonder what they do, monitor freshmeat or something? Do these guys get a commission for every convert?
In fact, the only people who have ever written to me expressing their disapproval over the licensing of my software have all had "gnu.org" as part of the email address. Now why is that?
It doesn't attempt to infect code it touches. It's goal is to form a club of Free Software users and Developers.
Precisely! GPLd software is not written for everyone, only a certain select few. They'll let you use it, but if you want to touch, you'll find that their definition of "freedom" only applies to club members.
The FSF and many GPL supporters are communitarians. They believe that the community is more important than the individual. They don't want individuals to own software, they want the community (or the FSF) to own the software, which is why it's still copyrighted and owned. They don't like the BSD and MIT licenses because users from outside the community are not required to play by community rules.
Just as the politicians in the material word holds the wants of the community in higher regard than the freedom of the individual, the Free Software Movement(tm) holds the the community's want to control the software distribution in higher regard than the freedom of the individual developer.
RMS has long looked for a less misunderstood term than "Free Software". How about "Community Software". It fits their meaning and it's easy to understand. And as a benefit, it de-emphasizes "freedom", which in the FSF rhetoric, has always played second fiddle to the "common good".
Libertarian, no doubt
Duh! If I were I socialist/communist/communitarian, I would believe that all property should be owned in common, and the GPL would have to be a moral imperative. If I were a liberal/conservative, I would believe I had to protect the common person from making a wrong decision, and the GPL would again become a moral imperative.
But since I am a libertarion (anarcho-capitalist, actually) then it doesn't bother me one bit if someone uses software whose license I would not have chosen. They are their own sovereigns, and it is not up to me to tell them what software they can or cannot use. It doesn't bother me if they choose Mandrake over Debian, or that Steve Jobs chose FreeBSD over Linux, or that Ransom Love doesn't like the GPL. And it doesn't bother me if a developer considers their software to be their property. If they license it in a way that I don't like, then I don't use it. My personal freedom is not affected by someone else's licensing. If the terms are too onerous, then it is I that chooses not use it. And should I choose to use it, then I can just as freely choose not to use it at a later date.
Define it however you want, the fact is that your idea of a free society is unworkable, where his idea is much more attainable.
It may not be workable in societies where all children are sent to government indoctrination centers until age 18, and where the state actively bribes voters with promises of cash, and where public office is considered a prize and not a responsibility.
But it can, and *does*, work in cyberspace. There is nothing anyone, anywhere can do to BSD or MIT licensed code that can alter your or my freedom with regards to it. Nothing. It is metaphysically impossible. Apple can take FreeBSD and mix it all up with proprietary code, but guess what? FreeBSD is still there. Unchanged. If you don't want to use OS X because it is proprietary, then it is your choice, and your free will, not to. Don't like it don't use it.
In the programmatic sense, you are correct. But we're talking about copyright here. I can't find any place in copyright law that dependency creates derivation. Can you show me were in law it says this?
I think it is your concept of freedom that is empty. Freedom is the absence of restriction. Period. The reason individuals cannot own slaves in a free society is because slavery is restriction. I don't need any laws defining your freedom to swing your fist to end at my nose, because once your fist connects, you are restricting me.
Don't try to delineate specific freedoms, and who gets what rights, and who enforces them, and which restrictions are too restrictive and which ones are not restrictive enough. That's legalistic mumbo-jumbo that merely employs lawyers. Instead, just make one simple guideline: don't restrict.
It is easy for you to think that your work is "entirely original," but if it won't work without someone else's GPLed code, then clearly it is derivative.
Not at all! There is no derivation, only reference. And copyright law is completely silent on the topic of reference. There are no analogies that fit this situation, since there are no similar toolkits for music or prose, so I won't attempt to create any.
And besides, it's completely contradictory to the most of the GPL itself. "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." By dynamically linking to a GPL library, I am neither copying, distributing or modifying the library. The user might have to copy the library into RAM, that isn't me.
GPL handouts are intended only for other GPL authors.
You hit the nail on the head. In nine words you've managed to capture the spirit and morality of the GPL. Pardon me if I follow a higher calling...
By dynamically linking my original application with a hypothetical GPLd library, libfoo, I am not distributing libfoo. Neither do I distribute any of libfoo when I distribute my application. My application is 100% original and in no way a derivative of libfoo.
At some point in time, my application will be loaded into the same process address space as libfoo, and this is the only time it gets copied. But it occurs at runtime in the privacy of the end user's computer, and does not involve the distribution of libfoo.
If the developer has an original work, (s)he can choose whatever license (s)he pleases.
My application that depends on libfoo is entirely original. Dependency is not derivation. Aggregation in RAM is not derivation. Yet RMS will not let me choose what license I please. The use of the GPL for shared libraries is wrong. It certainly ain't free. What it is is propaganda and bullshit.
If you don't find the underlying hypocrisy in this, you don't really understand the issue. It would be like some political faction arguing that land ownership is wrong, then encouraging everyone to put deed restrictions on their homes.
Ownership of property means control of the property. If no one owns it, no one controls it. But for the FSF to argue that the GPL is needed so that the authors can control the distribution of their software is to acknowledge that software should be owned. You can't have it both ways.
RMS doesn't want individuals or corporations to own software. But he certainly intends for software to be owned. He wants it owned by the "community" in common for the "public good". Sort of like the classic village commons. Except that the real village commons in history were invariably owned by an enlightened nobility who only meant the best for their enslaved serfs.
Actually, Stallman's mantra puts the end-users rights ahead of everything.
Bullshit! This is just more of FSF propaganda, and not very good propaganda at that. Developers are users too. The primary, if not sole, user of a software library is a developer. But when you place a library under the GPL, as opposed to the LGPL or other license, you are specifically restricting the developer in the worst possible way. You end up dictating to the end user how they may license and distribute their own original works of creativity.
RMS doesn't care about the end user. He only cares that his feelings won't get hurt by people using his software in ways that he doesn't want them to.
The typical non-hacker or un-geek sees freedom as being a lack of restriction. But RMS and the FSF does not see freedom that way. To them, freedom *requires* restriction, which is the whole point of the GPL. Strike one against him in the eyes of most people. In fact, the "free" in "free software" is meaningless without RMS's definition.
They also see that RMS says that "software should not be owned" while at the same time encouraging everyone to GPL (copyright) their software. This smacks of outright hypocrisy to the average person.
"Most people" don't know what copyleft is. But most sofware developers do. It is nearly impossible to be a developer for any period of time without knowing what it is. Yet the vast majority of developers do not espouse copyleft. The most successful free software project (Apache) is not copyleft. The second most successful (X11R6) is not copyleft. The third most successful (Perl) is not copyleft through it's dual licensing.
"Most people" would view the premise of copyleft as nonsensical. "Freedom, but not too much" is pretty silly.
It isn't based on the BSD license. It is the BSD license!
Check the slackware-current changelog. It's BETA time!
No, you don't have to pay royalties. Period. Just pay the professional edition. Once. No royalties, no additional payments, no nothing. It's actually freer in some ways than the GPL/QPL version, because you have zero restrictions upon your own code.
I am continually amazed at the degree of ignorance and FUD that gets posted here about Apple. Apple is not perfect by any means (their legal team should be fired), but they have made a lot of progress in the past few years and come out with some really interesting stuff. When other companies do that sort of stuff, everyone cheers. When Apple does it, it's nothing but bitching and moaning. Why?
Well, because Tacoboy and his minions hate anything that is not Linux, GNU or the GPL. IBM is okay because they use Linux. HP is okay because they use Linux. SGI is okay because they use Linux.
So what does Apple do? It bases its new OS on FreeBSD instead of LinuxOS, and uses the APSL instead of the GPL. To the kill-it-if-it-ain't-linux crowd, this was a mortal insult that can never be forgiven.
It would have only been 100Megs but for all the linuxconf dependencies...
In a nutshell, yes...
You are not free if you do not have the choice to be free or unfree. And if you have the ability to choose unfreeness, then you are free. Even if there is no turning back on unfreeness, at least you were free at the time you made that choice.
This is in stark contrast to proprietary software. You are born free and then subsequently choose to use proprietary software. If you don't like it, stop using it. It's like walking into a closet and shutting the door behind you. Your movement is now restricted because you are in a closet, but you are still free and the closet is not subjugating. Just step out! People *choose* to use Linux or BSD instead of Windows. How can they possibly be unfree if they have that choice?
It's great to know that no one in the GPL community has ever bashed the BSD license. That's so righteous of you guys. We should follow your example.
However, the xMach guys are not bashing the GPL. They are merely not desiring to use it. Can't you see the difference? Are you offended that "freedom" means that people don't have to make the same choices as you?